What Mehmet said was true, Gillian thought, taking a last lingering glance up at the gebel where they were headed. The whole country was a cipher, impossible to puzzle out. One of its many charms, she silently thought as she gathered her pack together.
Mehmet whistled loudly as he hurried to fetch Dawar, and by the time she’d swung into the saddle, his own small donkey had trotted up and he’d mounted, ready to lead on.
It was the hottest part of the day, so they took it slow and easy on their climb back to the foot of the towering ochre-and-beige-striped formations of the gebel. The old expression, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun,” had originated in places like this, and for good reason. The sun and heat could literally kill anyone who didn’t take ample precautions. Unfortunately, Gillian and her sisters’s university schedules precluded doing research anytime other than summer break. Normally, Gillian would have heeded Gemma’s advice to wait until the relative cool of late afternoon to continue her search.
But today she was too anxious, certain that the Kilpatrick inscription her father had mentioned in his survey notebook was close by.
Very close by.
Excitement bubbled within her at the prospect of finding it and completing her mission with a good result for her client. Historians didn’t have a lot of exciting job options. Teaching was about it. Which was fine. She loved history, and that was part and parcel of the profession. But success here could lead to other fascinating historical detective work during future summer holidays.
“Miss,” Mehmet called over his shoulder as he pulled his donkey to a stop. The donkey didn’t have a name. Mehmet claimed it would be silly. “You didn’t name your car, did you?” he’d cheerfully argued.
Actually, she had, but she’d prudently decided not to get into that debate.
“While we rested,” he continued, “I saw a shadow in the rock face. There.” He pointed up. “I think it’s an opening.”
Gillian had learned on the first day working with Mehmet always to trust his instincts. She suspected he often knew much more than he let on, and was in his own way leading her to a tomb, ruin, or other site he thought she might find interesting, without prompting sticky questions he’d rather not answer about the origins of that information.
Egypt’s most lucrative export had always been illegally obtained antiquities. Tomb robbing was a mainstay for many West Bank locals. The whole subject could bring Josslyn to a frothing frenzy of outrage over the loss of valuable archaeological data due to thieves’s complete disregard for anything other than saleable goods. Mehmet was undoubtedly connected in a big way to the trade. But unlike her sister, Gillian believed in quietly educating those involved. Hiring them for jobs such as this was a strategy far more likely to succeed in the long run than yelling at them or calling the corrupt antiquities cops, who would slap one hand while taking bakshish from the other.
“An opening? In the rock?” she asked. “You think it’s a tomb?”
“Maybe yes,” he said, nodding as he glanced back at the gebel, avoiding her eyes.
She cocked her head. “Then let’s check it out.”
“Yes. Good.” He looked almost nervous as he spurred his donkey forward up the increasing slope.
She wondered why. Maybe this was a rival village’s territory and he was worried about repercussions. Usually such animosity was set aside when foreigners hired locals as guides. It was in everyone’s interest to keep the tourists happy. And since she wasn’t an archaeologist, she’d be considered a tourist. In other words, not a threat to business.
She gave a mental shrug. Maybe the heat was getting to her, after all, and she really was imagining things. Why would he take her here if he thought he’d get into any real trouble for it? She wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d shown her every secret these cliffs were hiding. She just had to trust him enough to believe he would not let her down in her mission to find this one inscription.
And she did trust him. As far as it went.
She reined Dawar to follow the donkey along the skinny path at the foot of the gebel. After a few hundred yards they came to a stop. She looked up at the colorful sandstone crenulations of the cliffs, searching out the shadow he had spoken of.
“I don’t see anything.”
His eyes met hers, then quickly slid away. Unconsciously, he touched his amulet. “I must have been wrong.” He definitely seemed nervous. “Come. Let’s cont—”
“No, we may as well have a quick look around,” she said, and dismounted.
She’d never seen him like this before. Something was hidden around here, and she had every intention of finding out what. And why he seemed so jumpy.
After tying Dawar to a low bush, she hiked the last few feet to the cliff, reaching out to touch its rough, sandy surface. Hot. Gritty. No vibes. She smiled in memory. Her mother, a true child of the sixties, had believed the earth held spirits you could hear and feel, if you only tried hard enough. It was important not to offend them or dishonor them.
Gillian and her sisters still followed their mother’s habit of making a libation to the local spirits whenever they ate outside, and saying a prayer for safe passage through their lands. Better safe than sorry.
Unfortunately, no earth spirits spoke to Gillian today. She’d have to find whatever was hidden among the cliffs all on her own.
“But there is nothing,” Mehmet protested, arms spread expansively. “Perhaps farther along—”
“What’s that?” She squinted a few feet above her head. It was a shadow. Thin, but solid and black, clinging to a slight recess in the rock. She scrambled on all fours up the steep gravel alluvium to reach it.
“Miss!” Mehmet called after her. “Be careful! The sand is loose. It’s dangero—”
“My God! Look!” She reached the recess and peered behind the outcropping that hid it. “It’s an opening! Just as you thought.”
Tall and narrow like the eye of a needle, it was nevertheless large enough for a person to sidle through. Into what—if anything—was anyone’s guess. But again, she intended to find out.
She reached for the small but powerful flashlight hanging next to the knife sheath on her belt. “I’m going in.”
“Miss! Wait!”
She could hear Mehmet clamber hurriedly after her. But she had already switched on the flashlight, steeled her nerves, and slid through the opening.
She blinked as her eyes adjusted from dazzling sunlight to near-complete darkness. And realized she was standing in an antechamber. To a tomb. Ancient, by the look of it. Which was nothing unusual, in itself. The cliffs were riddled with them. The foyer-sized chamber, bare of objects and ornamentation, was simply four square walls chiseled out of the sandstone.
Uninscribed walls. Their only adornment was lines carved in the rock to make it look like fitted blocks.
Damn.
She sighed in disappointment.
Mehmet poked his head in through the opening. His eyes darted frantically around the empty room. Then his shoulders notched down, and again he touched his amulet. He reached for her arm. “You see? It’s nothing. We should go.”
She couldn’t help the feeling that he was desperately trying to draw her away from this place. Again, why?
“Just a sec,” she said, shook off his hand, and took two steps to the center of the chamber. Slowly, she trailed the beam of her flashlight over the walls. Searching for anything that would tell her why Mehmet was acting so strangely.
That’s when she found it. A narrow slot cleverly carved between two faux blocks, so well-hidden that anyone who had not grown up trekking through tombs and temples with an Egyptologist father would never have spotted it. Maybe not even then.
Her scalp prickled and a rash of goose bumps surged over her arms. She walked over to examine it closer. “What do we have here?”
“No! Miss, please. You shouldn’t be here. Let us leave this place at once.”
She turned to him. His mouth was twisted in fear. Good lord. These rivals must be ruthless.
“Mehmet, you know you can trust me,” she tried to assure him. “Whatever else this tomb contains is none of my business. I am only interested in one thing—the Kilpatrick inscription. If it’s here, I’ll take pictures and we can leave. I swear I’ll tell no one of its existence.”
He shook his head vigorously. “You don’t understand.”
“Go get the camera from the saddlebag,” she instructed crisply. “The sooner we find out if the inscription is here, the sooner we can go.”
He stared at her for a moment, then turned jerkily and left, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.
Okay, then.
Drawing her knife from its sheath on her hip, she gingerly inserted the blade, probing for the trip-latch she hoped she’d find. The tomb must be Ptolemaic. Only during the Greek period did such devices exist, then rarely, and to her knowledge only in the temples. A priest was probably buried here. Odd, though, this far south. Most of the real Greeks had stayed up north in Lower Egypt.
There! The knife tip hit something metallic. Carefully she pushed down on it. A low rumble started in the bowels of the tomb, and slowly, a square section of the rock started to move backward. When it stopped, it revealed a hole large enough for a man to crawl through.
Good heavens!
She swallowed, the goose bumps on her arms tickling like mad. She rubbed her palms over them, then reached for the water bottle in her trouser cargo pocket. She poured a generous libation on the ground and murmured a silent prayer.
Then she sucked down a deep breath, dropped to her knees, and crawled into the hole.